


Vellichor

by misslonelyhearts



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ancient History, Bookshop, Games, M/M, Scents & Smells, is it still mutual pining if you've been playing Spank the Angel for six thousand years?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:28:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21584584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misslonelyhearts/pseuds/misslonelyhearts
Summary: Adversary. Competitor. Downy, round, woeful, indomitable,do-gooding mischief-maker. What made Aziraphale so fun to play against would always, for Crowley, make him irresistible to playwith.A growl clambered off Crowley’s lips, which had been denied tea and scotch and the taste of blushes.Had he growled? More like a whimper.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 85





	Vellichor

_  
__  
_Each time Crowley crossed the threshold of the bookshop with the intent to fluster its owner, he gave equal time to browsing the wares. Never overtly, of course, no that wouldn’t be fun. He’d be snake-pulp beneath the tires of the damned Bentley before he’d allow Aziraphale the satisfaction--the sheer, creamy puffery--of knowing that Crowley _liked his things._ _  
_ _  
_Not for all the tea, fuck you very much.  
  
It was a gas to act apathetic about the angel’s collection of Indonesian poetry, and check his Apple watch instead. . . for additional volumes. It was simply too much fun to dangle about the place, his limp fingers playing along the shelves, affecting an air of immortal disinterest while taking mental notes on the book of Baudelaire’s essays he spied there. Bound in a cheeky, chartreuse silk.   
  
The place smelled of bodies. Oh, not the bloody kind, but the particulate oils. Ages of _touching,_ and some books still virginal in their decrepitude, too obscure or banal to have earned a single diddling in their lifetime. One sniff and Crowley could practically see the regretful way previous owners had dropped each book into a box to be shipped off to a graveyard like Aziraphale’s. On every visit, his tongue would dart out to taste that peculiar bookshop air, which owed its richness to the profound, molecular decay that few but a demon could appreciate. Lots of death, and loads of life, too. From the stories themselves, to the countless mites and silverfish that were happily digesting them.  
  
On a boring day, like today (and several hundreds of thousands before it), Crowley could disguise his greedy admiration for Aziraphale’s things by pushing his disinterested act to one of disgust. Disgust was powerful. It really got the old feathers twitching. Good. They’d had a melancholy time of it, since the un-apocalypse, and Crowley fancied a poke around the games section of the shop. He liked any place that made room for games, a corner full of fancy cards and occult-embellished boards, little cups with dice in them, made of gems or platinum or buttery bone. Every good shop had games, and Aziraphale never did anything that wasn’t good.  
  
Even his tea was good, though Crowley never drank it while he was looking. He always sipped behind the angel’s back, and left the cup looking brimmed and untouched. As if by a miracle. And though Crowley made a show of loathing the stuff, Aziraphale never failed to offer it.  
  
Within moments of thrusting open the shop’s creaky doors, Crowley found Aziraphale pouring two cups of smoky lapsang souchong.  
  
“We’re facing an eternity of monkeys running their respective zoos, and you’re serving soggy campfire leaves? With _milk_?” Crowley sauntered past the tea table, where Aziraphale had put aside some newly arrived, priceless rarities to unpack. “Scotch still exists, you know. Some of it is as old as any of these dusty firelogs.”  
  
Crowley flapped an arm at a bookcase, and within it he spied a slightly singed edition of _The Prophesies of Nostradamus_. Lips wrinkling, he muttered, “We’ve had ours, thanks,” and miracled it discreetly away to another dimension.  
  
“Tea is more than a drink. For many people it’s habit and tradition all rolled into one. It is a ritual,” replied Aziraphale, cozying the teapot with a hand-crocheted chicken. His eyebrows went lofty as he watched Crowley make a circuit around the shop. “As I recall, your side is rather enthusiastic about rituals.”  
  
Crowley’s head bobbed in half-agreement. He didn’t miss Hell’s mandate of blood sacrifices and monotone chanting. They didn’t understand the opportunities for mischief inherent in modern humanity’s thousands of pointless rituals. Lucky socks, worn to a state of zombification. Lawn care and maintenance. The clearing of browser histories. Assigned parking. Terms and conditions to be agreed to, every fifteen days.  
  
“Ah, the bad old days of ritual infanticide and fratricide and herbicide,” Crowley murmured, knuckle-tapping each syllable on the different volumes of an encyclopedia of mycology. Then, he turned sharply. “No, sorry. That was your lot.”  
  
“It wasn’t like that.” Aziraphale gestured at the empty chair that Crowley would eventually drape himself across. “And if it was, then it was part of the great. . .well, it was a long time ago.”  
  
The angel wasn’t good at pretending, but he was getting better. He feigned apathy in the face of Crowley’s apparent not-caring. But as Crowley ambled to the tea-table, scuffing the freshly re-stained wood floors with his dragging bootheels, Aziraphale cycled through shades of disappointment like a celestial chameleon.  
  
“Haven’t you got any new games? Cursed dominoes? Bridge cards made of Stalin’s dried skin?” Crowley climbed into the chair, crossed legs hanging off the side. He pointed vaguely at the curtained back room. “I know you’ve got better than a dusty box of tiddlywinks and three copies of _Pictionary, Esperanto Edition._ ”  
  
Aziraphale nestled into his overstuffed reading chair, teacup hovering at his lips. After a moment of studying Crowley with a dewy expression, he sipped. And smiled.  
  
“How. . .accurate of you,” he said.  
  
“Mmhm.” Crowley gazed at the ceiling, then the windows, and the kilim rug. He tapped his many rings on the back of the chair. “What?”  
  
“You know my inventory front to back, Crowley.” The teacup slid back onto its saucer with a delicate scrape. “If you want something specific, just ask.”  
  
“I did,” muttered Crowley. He looked at Aziraphale from over the top of his sunglasses. “Scotch. Old as balls scotch.”  
  
Aziraphale’s smile widened. He wasn’t feigning anything anymore. The angel was beaming the sort of satisfaction that had Crowley’s tummy flopping in figure-eights. Just the way he liked. Aziraphale set his cup to the side, on his desk, and began removing all the clutter from the tea-table.  
  
“Well, there is one thing you haven’t seemed to notice in all the time you’ve been coming here.”   
  
“No there fucking isn’t.” Crowley sat up.  
  
One by one, the bric-a-brac and old catalogues were cleared off the table. And with a buffing flourish from his coat sleeve, Aziraphale proudly revealed that the tea-table wasn’t a tea-table at all. Never had been.  
  
Crowley squirmed off the chair, quite forgetting how to be disinterested. He puddled onto the floor before the little table, unreservedly delighted.  
  
“The senet board!”   
  
The table was a one-of-a kind Egyptian senet game, constructed of ebony, with pristine inlays of lapis and ivory.   
  
“The very same,” said Aziraphale, hands clasped between his knees. “Created to commemorate the unification of the--”  
  
“Memphis. What a time! Gah, I always loved this game, the craftsmanship, the brutal simplicity,” Crowley cooed, tracing the five hieroglyphs in the bottom corner of the board. The carved lapis shone a perfect, unearthly blue.  
  
Crowley was stunned to silence by Aziraphale’s soft wiles. Memories rained down, monsoonlike. Egypt, the earliest host of glamour in the world of men, and the beginning of gritty city-life. He’d snuck down to the royal woodworker’s chamber, intent on booby-trapping the game with a stink charm or something. Instead, he’d found the angel, who never could resist a priceless relic in the making. Or a good game.  
  
They’d played often during the buzzing tumult of that spring.  
  
“You never won a single match,” said Crowley, fondly, and looked up to find the sentiment mirrored in his adversary’s face.  
  
“It’s a game of luck, you can’t beat someone at luck.” Aziraphale shooed Crowley’s hugging arms away from the board and turned the table so they could access the little drawer in the side. “If you beat me, it was because you cheated.”  
  
Crowley slunk back against a bookcase, arms loose around his knees, a grin loose between his cheeks. He watched Aziraphale place a few spool and tower pieces atop the board. As the throwing sticks came out, Crowley’s eyes widened. A fire of antagonism sparked in his core. Old mischief. Or flirtation. He’d never learned to distinguish them.  
  
“Hang on. This table was buried in a tomb,” he said, sitting up. “An undiscovered tomb, to be exact.”  
  
Aziraphale paused, ever so slightly, with the throwing sticks in-hand. “Was it?”  
  
“Lying. Sneaky. Cheating old _grave-robber_ ,” Crowley purred, achingly proud, sliding up to Aziraphale’s stuffy chair. “What’ve you got to say for yourself, angel?”   
  
He could’ve gobbled up every pert shade of pink that rose in Aziraphale’s cheeks. Licked them clean off. Instead, he plucked the throwing sticks gingerly from his hand, set them back in the drawer, and closed it.  
  
“Frankly. . .I’d say that I did what anyone would,” the angel began, helpless to stop the languid batting of his lashes as Crowley slithered closer on his knees. He swallowed when Crowley’s elbows planted on each arm of the chair. “For the betterment of all.”  
  
“All of history marched past you, never once offering a goodie bag for your efforts. As far as pilfered souvenirs go, you picked a corker.” Crowley’s chin came to rest in his left hand. With the right, he hiked a pair of fingers up the arm of Aziraphale’s linen waistcoat.  
  
Soft, but firm, Aziraphale covered Crowley’s roving hand with his own.  
  
“I am sentimental, yes. For the right things.”  
  
“Stealing out of sentimentality is still stealing, darling. And stealing is bad,” Crowley said, throwing an edge onto his voice. He slipped his hand out of Aziraphale’s grasp. “Could’ve sworn I read that somewhere.”  
  
Pained, Aziraphale leaned into his righteousness. Hell help him, it only made Crowley hotter. Pushing Crowley aside, Aziraphale extricated himself from the chair and stood beside the senet board.  
  
“A celebration of political and cultural unity. A defining moment for two warring nations, one decision that changed everything for Egypt, forever. Sometimes, _Crowley._ Well, sometimes, it must be said that you take for granted how rare that is.” He picked up a lapis spool from among its cohorts, then set it down again beside a tower. “You’ve always taken for granted that level of forward-thinking, and risk, and sacrifice.”  
  
As soon as the accusation left his lips, Aziraphale’s face bloomed with regret.  
  
“Oh I do, do I?” Crowley rose to his full height in a single, swift motion. Hands on his hips, he loomed over Aziraphale. “I? Take the risk of unification. _For granted?_ ”  
  
“Well. Alright. Not for granted, no,” Aziraphale backpedaled, ready to suture old wounds. He touched Crowley’s chest, just over the spot where a heart had grown under his care. “You take it _lightly_ , then.”  
  
“I’ll take you lightly,” Crowley mumbled, heated words without menace, his eyes irretrievably on the angel’s lips.  
  
“Go on, you can do better,” Aziraphale volleyed, hopeful and biting at the same time.  
  
Crowley frowned, down to his immortal guts. At the same time, he’d never needed his wings spread more badly than he did at that very moment.  
  
He should kick the senet table over. All those charming little pieces they’d played with, he should scatter them into a hundred lost dimensions, and then swagger out of the bookshop with a backward wave. Let the angel clean up all their unresolved tension, for once.   
  
Adversary. Competitor. Downy, round, woeful, indomitable, _do-gooding mischief-maker_. What made Aziraphale so fun to play against would always, for Crowley, make him irresistible to play _with_.   
  
A growl clambered off Crowley’s lips, which had been denied tea and scotch and the taste of blushes.  
  
Had he growled? More like a whimper.   
  
It struck true. Aziraphale went all softness and care. He brightened, eyes brimming with purpose, the way he got when they passed through a thick cloud of love that someone had left lying around.  
  
“What?” said Crowley. “Hell’s sake, _what?_ ”  
  
Aziraphale rolled up on his toes, chest to Crowley’s chest, and with a guiding hand on the back of his head, brought Crowley’s mouth to his own. Not their first kiss, nowhere near their last, but it was new. It decimated him, like everything real in the world. He melted into warm, angelic bulk, giving back as good as he got, serving up tongue that could tie a gordian knot, hands as lewd with the angel’s backside as his mouth was reverent. Aziraphale, bless his romantic hands, lost his footing in the challenge of matching passion for passion. Crowley caught and pivoted him back into his chair, climbing into his lap without sacrificing a second of contact.  
  
Aziraphale landed with a breathy “oof.”  
  
“It wasn’t entirely sentimental,” he said, breaking the kiss, looking guilty for things he’d not yet done but wanted to.  
  
Crowley had been giving the angel’s broad lap a shameless grind of the hips. When Aziraphale stopped twitching and gripping in response, Crowley noticed and leaned back.  
  
“Hm?” he replied, bleary, disappointed to find himself less ravished than he’d intended to be by this point.  
  
“Taking the senet table from the tomb,” Aziraphale explained. “It was necessary. By a circumstance of your making, I’d like to remind you.”  
  
Without dislodging Crowley from his lap, Aziraphale reached out to the senet table and opened the drawer to its full extension.  
  
Squinting past the throwing sticks and game pieces, Crowley spied a long-lost bit of vandalism, carved into the drawer of the priceless ebony artifact. There, he’d executed the figure of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in a perfect Egyptian style, and beneath it, for flavor, several dozen fleeing Egyptian people. And because Crowley had carved it during the time period, no archaeologist, scientist, or fancy scanning technology would ever be able to say it was anything but authentic.  
  
“Oh ho-ho! I’d forgotten about that!” He marveled at it, still satisfied with himself for one little prank after a millennia of terrible achievements. Satisfied, also, that the angel had brought it back into his life. “Would’ve been a good one, that. Shame.”   
  
Under him, Aziraphale made a scoffing noise.  
  
“See? Lightly.” He searched Crowley’s face for a little understanding, a little give for what he wanted to take. But he wasn’t giving up the snug fit of Crowley’s thighs around his middle. Oh, Heavens no. “I don’t think a little gravitas is too much to ask. Is it? Once in a while?”  
  
People really did believe in the sanctity of seriousness.  
  
Crowley shook his head.  
  
A serious person might argue that Aziraphale needn’t have bothered carting the senet table out of the tomb to preserve the dignity of archaeology, or whatever creative excuse he’d imagined for himself. Correcting Crowley’s misdeeds was just a snap of the old miracle fingers. But he hadn’t miracled it away. He’d kept it, vandalism and all. It was a representation of the monumental effort of unifying Egypt. It belonged in the tomb of the man who’d orchestrated that feat. Quite without irony, for scores of pale tomb-robbers would come after him, Aziraphale had looked at this treasure, buried alongside so many others, and decided that it belonged to him.   
  
Because it had been __theirs.   
  
Yes, a serious person would consider this fact worth noting, even at the cost of a cessation of fraught, sexual hijinks.  
  
In service of unification, of survival, Crowley felt he’d become as grave as his heart would allow. And whatever his reason for insisting on it now, Aziraphale didn’t truly want Crowley to be serious. That much was evident in all the strained bulging and fondling he was, at that moment, still doing.  
  
“You don’t like things fast,” said Crowley in a deep, sober tenor. With both hands, he removed his glasses.  
  
At a snap of his fingers, all the window shades began to roll down. Then, he gave up his seat on the angel’s lap in order to kneel between his knees.  
  
“You don’t like them light.”   
  
With heavy motions, he miracled open his shirt. Peeled back his pants. And went to work on Aziraphale’s three-piece, starting with the belt and fly.  
  
“Time for a game-change.”  
  
As the light in the shop died, and Crowley became more naked, Aziraphale burned a creamy, satisfied pink. His hands traveled Crowley’s face and jaw, back to the base of his skull, where they seemed to remember the weight of long hair. Crowley felt his head being urged firmly forward. To the source of a scent more complex than the bookshop around them.  
  
“I. . .I suppose that could be. Well, it could mean--” Even when he tried, he couldn’t be stern.  
  
Crowley teased him with a wicked smile, then held a suppressive finger to the root of Aziraphale’s cock.  
  
“Dark,” he offered, extending his tongue to the game at hand, “and s-s-s-slow.”

**Author's Note:**

> wet, slippery thanks to todisturbtheuniverse, and jkateel.


End file.
